Mother

Apuleius said of the mother, "Nature, the universal Mother, mistress of
all the elements, primordial child of time, soverign of all things spiritual,
QUEEN of the dead, queen also of the immortals,
the single manifestation of all gods and goddesses that are, whose nod
governs the shining heights of Heaven, the wholesome SEA breezes,
the lamentable silences of the world below. She is worshipped in many aspects,
known by countless names and propitiated with all manner of different rites"(Cooper,
108). The mother is the archetypal feminine, symbolizing all phases of
life, fertility, eternal renewal and rebirth, protection, shelter, warmth,
and nourishment. She is the Virgin Mother or the wicked stepmother, but
she is a figure perpetually embedded deep within the individual, collective,
and universal psyches.